The Future of Theater in Louisville

When Les Waters was in the process of interviewing for the position of artistic director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, he made it a point to venture out into the community. While shopping at a local store, he was approached by a woman who inquired about his British accent. Upon hearing about his potential new job, she proceeded to explain the importance of the yearly productions like “A Christmas Carol” and “Dracula,” going so far as to point out differences in the productions from year to year.

Louisville theater is a place where these community rituals can exist with absolutely no sense of irony, side-by-side with some of the most challenging productions in the country. It is a place where the focus is on both the institutional and the tiny. It is intrinsically woven in with the national conversation or delightfully deranged. And while there isn’t an easy answer as to why that is, the answer most certainly starts with having audiences who are vested. Whether it is “True West,” “Point Break LIVE!” or Shakespeare, they care.

Many things have come out of the now infamous talk given in 2011 by Jon Jory, longtime artistic director at Actors Theatre, at the Boyd Martin Experimental Theater (MEX) at The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts. However, there was a point in this talk when Alison Huff, managing director of Walden Theatre, had an epiphany. Looking around at an audience full of her peers, she was struck for the first time by just how many creative cousins had carved out a niche in this town. She realized that an intimidating number of aspiring, driving, and nimble companies had cropped up in the formerly null space between community theater and Actors Theatre.

Just a week later, she found herself in the first discussions of what would become the Slant Culture Theatre Festival, bringing together Walden Theatre, Theatre [502], Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble, Savage Rose Classical Theatre Company, and the Louisville Improvisors for an unprecedented collaborative event.

The growth of that middle ground, and the growth of the scene at large, has been such that many creatives returning to the city – such as Jon Huffman, co-artistic director of The Armored Car Theatre at Vault 1031 – have been caught off guard. For a long time, Louisville has played host to some of the best theater education in the country, whether it be at Walden Theatre, at the Youth Performing Arts School, or in the Apprentice/Intern Company at Actors Theatre. Now more than ever, that vast output of talent is finding ways to stay. Perhaps even more exciting is the fact that the talent is venturing forth, only to come back to Louisville in the future and reinvest those outside experiences into the local scene.

Membership drives and season tickets are as important as ever, but projects like Fund for the Arts’ power2give.org are bringing to bear all the promise of 21st century, Kickstarter-esque crowdsourcing, with the added legitimacy of fund matching. Just a year in, this new model has proven to be a game-changer for nonprofits across the state. It has not only funded entire productions, but also the smaller, less glamorous needs, like materials for a new set design or new shoes for a youth ballet group – needs that would otherwise be tough to come by. According to the 2011 Cygnus Donor Survey, 69 percent of donors aged 35 to 64 plan to donate online at least once a year. In the under 35 demographic, 86 percent plan to make online donations. Barbara Sexton Smith, president and CEO of Fund for the Arts, said that 80 percent of power2give.org donors have never contributed to Fund for the Arts before. Smith believes these numbers represent a paradigm shift.

New places and, by extension, new faces naturally come as a result of new ideas and new conversations. Both Theatre [502] and Savage Rose have notably held productions at the Iroquois Amphitheater in the South End, but stepping outside the city core is still exceptional. For their part, Huffman and Barbara Cullen, the other co-artistic director of The Armored Car Theatre at Vault 1031, realized that this city needed another theater space rather than another theater company. The pair hope that Vault 1031 and The Armored Car Theatre, located in Old Louisville, will empower existing companies and community groups, while bringing a year-round art presence to the neighborhood that the St. James Court Art Show calls home.

There are real challenges out there. Like-sized companies have to continue the shift from viewing themselves as competitors to cross-pollinating ideas and audiences through shared passions. Existing theater figures in town have to expand theater education beyond the walls of our storied institutions and reach out to children of all ages who would otherwise have no exposure. Companies and audiences have to continue to challenge each other toward new experiences, new locales, and new ways of making it happen.

The good news is that this is something we do well. Attracting professional basketball programs, not so much, but great theater, absolutely. We’re also largely on the right track. The Louisville theater landscape of today would be almost unrecognizable as compared to the dusty tumbleweeds of yesteryear. And the moves toward further audience enrichment, increased inter-company communication, new funding models, and wider footprints are already being made and proven.

If we continue to commit to this upward trajectory, if audiences and companies continue to buy into the love of that simple experience of sitting in a dark room together and sharing in a story, then the next step in Louisville theater is going to look a lot like the last several steps in Louisville theater, just with a lot more friends with whom to share it.

Les Waters – artistic director, Actors Theatre of Louisville

I still feel new to the theater scene in Louisville. Well, I’m just new and the job is all-consuming.

One thing I’ve really been impressed with is the quality of the audiences. I think you get some feeling about the work by watching the audience. And I’ve been really impressed with locals willing to engage and the quality of listening, the attention that they give a show. And I don’t know why that is, but I’m interested in finding out. Our audiences aren’t jaundiced or cynical about the work. They may not like it, but it’s never that they’re over with it before it starts.

I’m very excited for my first Humana Fest, which is known both locally and nationally. For outsiders, people know about productions going on in Louisville. I like to think of the theater in this city as being both local and national.

The more we can form relationships with each other, I think is great. I like talking to people about the work. All of us who make theater here in Louisville – I hope we listen to the audiences.

[The education] is crucial. I got into theater by doing it in high school. The great thing about working in theater is that it teaches collaboration because it’s a collaborative art. It’s people getting together and solving a problem. And the students we’re training are the next generation of theater professionals. It’s about sending people out there and then bringing them back.

I love that we have a core of young people, of 20 year olds in the building. I’m 60. I don’t know things. I’m not on the street anymore. So it’s vital that we have that energy. It’s gratifying to be working around young people who could be doing anything, but who still feel a need to be doing theater.

I think that the big challenge is that theater used to be one of the places where you went to experience something. Now I can watch things on my iPhone. But I think [theater] is a democratic experience. It’s people deciding to stop the outside world for a moment and sit in the dark together. Everyone sits together in the dark and watches and shares that experience with people.

Gil Reyes – co-artisitic director, Theatre [502]

[Theatre [502] is], thanks to our actors, designers, technicians, and directors, consistently producing some of the most polished and professional theater outside of Louisville’s big guns. We’ve made a big splash in one year, with two seasons of shows that speak to Louisville audiences and get them talking. We’re still in our infancy in many ways, but we’re growing up fast.

Our reputation precedes us. And it is leading us to new venues and collaborations, which translates to new audiences and possibly some new types of theater. Still, that’s just the first step in a long road to creating a theater scene in Louisville that can rival our benchmark cities in diversity and quality.

In order to grow, we need diversified funding sources and help from established organizations. Initiatives like power2give are already a step in that direction. We also need more opportunities for local actors to hone their craft. Luckily, we’re the type of people who can create opportunities.

I will say that the traditional models of funding are increasingly problematic. We need better business minds in the arts, the kind of people who can get creative in order to stay on top of new trends and pioneer their own.

[The] Slant Culture Theatre Festival collaboration has a few implications. The biggest is simply: Can we pull this sort of thing off? Assuming the answer is yes, reaching new audiences is only the beginning. A theater festival of this magnitude has the potential to become an anchor event for Louisville’s theater community. As we rally around it, we’ll shift the perception that this work happens in pockets to an understanding that this community is unified. I think it can become a sought-after producing venue and regional hot spot for the best we have to offer.

While it isn’t expressly part of our mission to reach out to nontraditional audiences, we do a certain amount of that. We reach out to other parts of the artistic community. And we reach out to people who like a very social community. I feel like we provide a chance for those who like to consider the questions raised by art to do so. We raise those questions, we engage our audience, and we thrive on feedback. I’d say if we’re reaching out to people who don’t normally go see theater, they’re people who just haven’t found the right theater. But I wouldn’t say that [Theatre [502]] is a primer for people who’ve never been to the theater. I also don’t think Louisville needs us to do that because plenty of companies already do that. I guess I do subscribe more to the “if you build it” philosophy. And we focus more of our energy on building really professional, thought-provoking work.

 

Alison Huff – managing director, Walden Theatre

Actors Theatre is the steadfast anchor, but I’m fascinated by what’s happening with the smaller groups – Le Petomane, Theatre [502], Savage Rose Classical Theatre Company, Louisville Improvisors.

They all have a distinct niche that complements rather than competes. Arts audiences in our community tend to exist in silos, with little crossover from one to the next. With these things in mind, the timing seemed right for a new collaborative effort. So over the last year I created the first theater festival by Louisville artists and for Louisville audiences with these four groups plus Walden Theatre, which produced and hosted the event.

As an advocate for the young actors at Walden, I’m excited about the theater options they now have in their hometown after graduation. Even those who pursue other majors and careers never really leave theater behind. At Walden, they get used to performing [William] Shakespeare and [George Bernard] Shaw, [Arthur] Miller and Molière…With the great things Savage Rose is doing with classical work, and [502] is doing with contemporary work, Walden alumni – those who studied theater professionally and those who didn’t – now have myriad accessible opportunities to choose from, as actors and as patrons. Walden always needs qualified instructors and directors too. Put these things together and not only does it lure talent back to Kentucky, but it keeps them here because they can earn a living wage doing meaningful, soul-feeding work.

There’s always more room for meaningful collaboration in the arts and culture sector. Our default mindset is competition. And the existing patron silos are evidence of that. It serves us all better in the long run to work together, leveraging resources, enhancing existing programs, sharing audiences and donors. The Slant Culture Theatre Festival has been Walden Theatre’s most notable attempt to bridge those divides. I hope it grows in the coming years and inspires other groups to follow suit.

My husband is a singer/songwriter. Most people who know him would consider him to be a talented artist, but our arts community doesn’t recognize his contribution as “art.” I get frustrated that only “high art” institutions have access to money and opportunity in our community. Meanwhile, those same institutions are desperate for younger audiences. Anyone who follows local music and goes to galleries in this town knows that there are throngs of young people interested in art. With more collaboration, we can bridge this generational divide. But it will take ingenuity and flexibility to make it happen. In the end, arts organizations can’t – and in my view shouldn’t – survive if they’re not relevant.

Barbara Sexton Smith – president and CEO, Fund for the Arts

The Louisville theater scene is very exciting right now. Our anchor theater institution is doing better than ever. There’s a pretty large theater alliance group forming, different performers, a whole lot more opportunity to a lot of people with very high quality work.

Whether you’re large or brand new, everybody seems to be trying new things. [They’re] in an innovation mode. We have theater-going audiences – audiences who expect things.

I applaud Walden Theatre for [the Slant Culture Theatre Festival], but there’s also Bunbury Theatre, which is a mainstay, and groups like Pandora [Productions]. Take the Kentucky Shakespeare Program, who have a vision for making Louisville a destination, a model for Shakespeare.

The larger groups have to take calculated risks. To be smaller and nimbler is critical. We have to reinvent ourselves.

Collaboration is a key for the future. The community will embrace it. It will grow audiences. Most human beings want to silo themselves, are protective of their own vision. We have to think of ourselves as not being in competition with one another, come out of the silos, and start working together.

But there also has to be collaboration behind the scenes, with the business side of theater, with management and marketing. If you can’t manage, market, promote it, it won’t work. It’s no different a challenge any business has.

I’d like to see partnerships with colleges, automatic intern programs. I have a dream that this could be the theater capital of the world for starting your career.

We ought to be thinking creatively about performance venues. I want to see this in about a year. We’ve got to go out and touch all the geography, out of downtown, out of the usual settings. Arts do not fan out to all areas in this community. We have to develop theater audiences of tomorrow.

[Building audiences and quality content] are parallel paths. You have to have both to create an arts-going community, to get the people of all ages going.

 

Jon Huffman – co-artistic director, The Armored Car Theatre at Vault 1031

When The Armored Car Theatre opportunity at Vault 1031 presented itself, my partner, Barbara Cullen, and I first thought that we could start our own production company and produce shows ourselves. We’ve both done everything there is to do in theater – all over the country – and this would be our chance to use our talents creating shows in our own backyard.

But we realized that, unlike when we were starting out, today Louisville has an extremely active, vibrant theater community. There are dozens of great production companies, each with its own constituent audience. On any given weekend, the theater choices in Louisville are myriad. The biggest problem these companies have is the lack of adequate stage venues. There just aren’t enough. And theater companies are sacrificing productions and production standards in order to meet their audiences’ needs.

That became our goal: to create a state-of-the-art theater for all of these wonderful companies to use. We see The Armored Car Theatre as a kind of one stop shopping experience for small theater companies.

Another goal for The Armored Car Theatre at Vault 1031 is to be a center for the kind of classes, workshops, and seminars that adult theater practitioners in particular need. There are plenty of really great resources for children to use for classes in acting, dance, voice, etc., but very few places where adults can work on honing their skills. And that’s the case in most cities outside New York and Los Angeles. We want to provide those kinds of opportunities here to serve those who are creating all this wonderful theater.

We believe that the future of live performing arts is going to depend on creating an economic production model. That’s going to mean, in part, creating new works with smaller casts, new works which more intimately depend not on special effects and spectacle, but on story, on relationships, on human interaction. As a 130-seat venue, we want to be a place where this more intimate, more economical paradigm for new work can be tested regularly, not just in theater either, in musical theater, in opera, in dance, and any performing art that requires the interaction of performer and audience. It’s not just exciting; it’s economical.

As a city and a region, Louisville is a hot bed of creativity in all the arts. We want to help make sure that performing artists of all genres have the kind of support they need to create the work that the rest of the country is hungry for.

 

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